Faking The Blues.

This week I read an interview with a blues artist I've never heard of before, Eugene Hideaway Bridges. I still haven't had a chance to hear his music, but it was a pretty cool interview. And he said some really interesting things. But there was one quote I especially liked.

"A fake blues is like listening to Dick Van Dyke play an English person in Mary Poppins."

Which is true. You can tell when someone is faking the blues - the same as you can tell when a writer is faking science fiction, or any other genre for that matter. It just doesn't ring true.

Which comes back to 'write what you know.' And know its history.